Crime & Safety
Property Crime Up Again This Month in Altadena
In Altadena, violent crime continues to drop. But property crime has risen in 2012 compared to last year, and July's report showed an increase in crime over June.
In a year-to-date comparison published by the LA County Sheriff’s Department, Altadena’s violent crime rate overall has dropped through July this year compared to the same period last year, but property crime has drastically increased.
Crime statistics released by the department show an 8.6% reduction in violent crimes from January through July of 2011, compared to the same period in 2012.
On the other hand, property crime, particularly burglary and larceny, has been trending up, and thus far has increased almost 30% over the same period last year.
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That's up from last month, when the department for the first six months of 2012 compared to 2011.
Burglaries are the main case, with 36 percent more in the first seven months of 2012 compared to the same period in 2011.
Find out what's happening in Altadenawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
The report also compares crime rates in all areas served by the LA County Sheriff's Department. For 2012, year-to-date, Crescenta Valley has the lowest rate of reported crime (36 reports per 10,000 people); the highest rate is Cerritos (237 per 10,000). Altadena checks in with 104 reports per 10,000 population.
According to volunteer Carolyn Seitz who helped parse through the stats, this year's rise in Altadena property crime can be attributed at least partially to “residents [who] continue to carelessly leave valuables in plain sight in their vehicles and leave vehicles parked out in the open, not in a locked garage. The combination of easy access - on the street or in a driveway, and purses, wallets, cameras, phones, computers, iPads or other tablets or readers, MP3 players, designer sunglasses, currency, coins, credit cards and gps devices in plain sight, leave us easy prey.”
Seitz reminds us to call the Altadena Sheriff’s Station at 626 798 1131 whenever we see suspicious activity. What is suspicious activity? it’s pretty much anything that makes you feel suspicious. And if you’re on the fence about it, they’d rather hear from you than not.
You can find the entire 119-page LA County Sheriff's report by clicking here.
